


Before Us Lies Eternity

by sequinnox



Series: Stars Not Fathomed Into Constellations [3]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Light Angst, References to Depression, To Be Edited, how do i even tag this if i have no idea what is going on myself
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:42:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27213616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sequinnox/pseuds/sequinnox
Summary: Instead, he got to pick up the silky scarf, that in the artificial lights seemed translucent. A subtle, familiar fragrance filled his nostrils as Ichigo brought it closer to his face– and that was when he finally noticed the small, elegant embroidery with silver thread that read simply,  Kuchiki Rukia.( IchiRuki Week Day 3: A curse between us )References to depression and self harm, though they are quite subtle.
Relationships: Kuchiki Rukia/Kurosaki Ichigo
Series: Stars Not Fathomed Into Constellations [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1983538
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13
Collections: Ichiruki week





	Before Us Lies Eternity

**Author's Note:**

> “There are so many worse things than death. Not to be loved or not to be able to love: that is worse.”  
> ― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Princess
> 
> The title is from W. B. Yeats' "Ephemera", my favourite poem of all times.
> 
> rcstanescu, you are a lifesaver and I love you even when I sound like an illiterate dumbass :)

Rain. Sempiternal and grey, rain seemed to accompany Ichigo with every step he took, days blending into each other like a badly drawn landscape. 

Losing so much sleep Ichigo felt like he was running on spite and thin air, he just waited for the alarm to ring the start of a new day before the previous one even ended. He went through the motions he knew so well, a dead man walking.

Wake up, shower, get dressed, eat breakfast, leave for school. Do homework, go to bed. Repeat.

Again and again, and again.

Climbing down the stairs, he sat at the table across from the empty chair that should have been his mother’s, pointedly ignoring the daggers Karin was shooting at him any time he was in the same room with her, or the way Yuzu couldn’t even look him in the eye. Even Isshin was quiet, staring at his plate.

 _He was doing this to protect them_ , Ichigo repeated to himself, until the words didn’t even resemble words anymore, but gibberish he tried to mold into a pillar to support himself. It didn’t work, but Ichigo was no stranger to trying again, to hitting your head on the same wall again and again, until you weren’t sure if there really was a dent in the wall, or if you finally hit your head hard enough for reality to look the way you wanted it to.

He grabbed his backpack without even thanking for the breakfast, departing too quickly to hear the hushed cusses or the broken sighs.

*

The walk to school was part of the routine he knew so well, that he didn’t even notice the short schoolgirl wearing the uniform of some other school passing by him, her purple eyes fleeting over his face. He had places to be and no time to waste, so his scowl deepened as he continued to walk. 

Ichigo passed by the bakery he used to love as a kid, taking a corner that was once the host of a small flower shop, quickening his pace as he passed by Orhime leaving her house, whose shy smile turned sad, lowering the hand she had raised to greet him.

Orihime had been Ichigo’s friend ever since they were kids, and had liked him for almost as long, exchanging his rudeness with a kindness he couldn’t accept, not if he had any say in it. He couldn’t endanger her, and what was a heartbreak in the grand scheme of life.

Broken hearts could be mended with molten gold, but the living could not hear the song of the dead echoing in the hollow of their chests.

Shaking his head in a poor attempt to clear his though, Ichigo walked past the gate and into the big, boxy building that displayed his academic achievements as if they mattered. Knitting his eyebrows, Ichigo passed the honor roll and found his classroom, sitting in the same place as he had in the previous years, and stared outside, groups of students gathering like bouquets of wildflowers before the last ring of the bell could call them inside. 

It was for the better, not having friends. He could focus on his studies, dedicate his entire life to being a medic and _saving_ people– there was no time left for him to develop friendships anyway, and he could finally pay his debt, giving back life instead of taking it. A brilliant medical career was placed in front of him in the path of life, everyone told him that much.

The Shakespeare book in his school bag was heavy though, and he remembered to place it neatly on the desk. _The fault, dear Ichigo, is not in our stars, but in ourselves_. 

*  
  


Ichigo never had a bento box to dig into when it was time for lunch break, so he usually sat in the shadow of the same old tree, which quickly became known as _his_ tree– the one people avoided like the plague, leaving him alone with his books and thoughts and sorrows. If his fingers were adorned with papercuts, it was nobody’s business but his own.

(Later that night he would dip them into alcohol and wrap his mind around the way it burnt, hurting enough to make the numbness go away for a little while)

Ichigo always brought with him the same book, whose pages were now battered and yellow, filled with notes that were written in a far neater handwriting than his own. Tragedies were real, and comedies were tragedies waiting for their turn to happen. And so, it was no wonder that he knew the words by heart, reciting them to himself whenever he felt too alone. The absurdity of loss was somehow overcome by rationality if he tried to reason with it enough.

Ichigo closed his eyes, but he quickly opened them again when a peculiarly strong gust of wind went about, pulling his favourite bookmark from between the pages faster than Ichigo could catch it. The bookmark was a gentle purple in remembrance of the faint lavender scent it once held, and had two golden letters imprinted on it, _K.M._

 _One less piece of the past to hang unto_ , he thought to himself, trying to push down the heartache that bloomed in his chest until Ichigo felt like he couldn’t breathe. He knew that if something were to happen to him now, no one would come.

No one would come and save him.

Ichigo closed his eyes, and breathed in deeply, scowling and tensing his facial hard enough that he would not cry, though his eyes were damp still.

“Excuse me! I think this belongs to you?” her tone upped in pitch as she finished the sentence, a question floating above the words. 

Ichigo opened his eyes and turned his head toward the girl that was now standing beside him, that he hadn’t even noticed approaching. She was short enough that she was barely taller than him sitting on the ground, but held herself in a way that made him Ichigo think of something he couldn’t quite point out. She huffed impatiently, her purple eyes narrowing as she looked at him, her outstretched hand still holding the bookmark.

Oh, she was one of the rich kids, Ichigo noticed. If her fancy uniform and the tilt of her chin didn’t say so, her accent clearly spoke of someone from the upper class of society. Ichigo frowned, and pulled the bookmark from her hand, muttering a half-assed _thanks_.

“If I knew you would be so rude, I wouldn’t have bothered to bring it back, distressed or not.”

Looking back down, Ichigo’s scowl softened. There was no reason to be impolite after all, and his mother taught him better than that.

“I wasn’t distressed,” he muttered under his breath, although she was close enough to hear it. She chuckled, and sarcasm clung to her every word. 

“Ah, excuse me then, I didn’t mean to disrupt your euphoric state. You could give me back the bookmark and I will be on my way, then.”

Holding the bookmark harder between his fingers, Ichigo decided to store it safely between the pages of the book, clutching it until his knuckles whitened. He stayed silent, though the girl let out a breathy laugh– it was not mean though, and Ichigo was surprised that he realised that. She combed her fingers through her perfect, shiny hair, pulling it out of her face, with the only exception of the long bangs that seemed content where they were, between her amethyst eyes. She had pretty eyes, and something very, particular about her, somehow. 

A loud honk broke the silence between them. 

“I think that’s my ride. See you around…?”

“Ichigo” he answered, a bit breathless, as he watched her leave. Ichigo had never seen the girl before, so he doubted that he would ever see her again.

“Goodbye then, Ichigo.”

Seeing her enter the black car with tinted windows and being driven away, Ichigo was hit with two revelations at once.

Firstly, Ichigo never got to thank her properly. 

Secondly, he didn’t know her name.

Though, about the second thing, Ichigo didn’t think it would be a big problem. It wasn’t like he was going to forget about her anytime soon. In the background, the bell started to ring.

*

Ichigo was proud to affirm that he was not wrong about many things. For example, he knew exactly when it would rain based on the hue of the sky, and he knew exactly what words to say to Tatsuki to get her to punch him whenever she tried to get closer to him, _to make sure that he was alright_. Of course he was alright, he had no reason not to be, and if the blood on his knuckles said otherwise, well, that was no one else’s business.

What Ichigo _wasn’t_ right about, though, was that he would not see the girl again. 

Still, he had imagined that their meeting would happen somewhere other than a cemetery. And to be completely fair, he didn’t even recognize her at first, too busy looking at the grave that was beside his mother’s, which had been abandoned and disheveled for years, and that now looked. Tidy, neat even, with freshly planted flowers in bloom surrounding the headstone which read _Hisana Kuchiki_.

“See, I told you we would meet again, Ichigo.”

Embarrassed to be caught staring, Ichigo raised his arm in a greeting before actually noticing who exactly had called out to him. That’s when he remembered the person he had associated with that voice, and there she was – the bookmark retriever.

Though she seemed different this time, he noticed. Her smooth skin was puffy and tear streaked, and her eyes seemed, sad. Everything about her was out of order, from the crookedness of the bow around her neck, to the hair sticking up in odd directions. 

Ichigo knew he was awkward, but there wasn’t much he could do about it other than wordlessly hand her his clean kerchief. When she accepted it, her fingers were cold enough for him to feel through the thin fabric.

He didn’t ask her if she was alright, because it was a stupid question, but instead gave her space, and silence. Grief did not know pleasantries, and was a magnet to a pity he knew better than to offer. People did not understand that pity did not fill the space a loved one left behind, and it only made the pain burn brighter within.

The girl gently tapped her eyes with the kerchief, before handing it back, following Ichigo when he directed them to a wooden bench close by, one he knew too well. Each of them sat at the opposite ends of the bench, although Ichigo felt like she was both an eternity and a hair’s breadth away.

She kept her back straight, and if she was going to pretend that the hands she had placed in her lap were not wet with the stray tears that kept falling, then so was Ichigo. It was getting late, and he knew wind was about to pick up; she was not shivering even though Ichigo was pretty sure that the shirt she was wearing was far from adequate for the weather.

Some wounds would stay raw, gleaming red in the dim light of a dying day, and this girl made of marble and silk seemed to know that all too well.

Ichigo may be a complete asshole to those who knew him, but. This girl didn’t know him, and Ichigo thought that his curse could not affect her, not if the thing parting them was as strong as death. And he was feeling too warm anyway, what difference would it make if he just so happened to let his blazer drape around her shoulders. 

He didn’t do that though, They were strangers who happened to meet in a graveyard, and that was the furthest away from the romantic comedies he heard his classmates talking about.

“What were they like?” he asked instead, looking straight ahead. He thought she either didn’t hear his question, or chose to ignore it completely, but then Ichigo heard her whisper, as if she was breathless, and careful not to wake the dead.

“She was beautiful. And kind. Or at least that’s what Byakuya-nii-sama says about her.” She paused, gathering her thoughts, before continuing, “ Hisana-nee died when I was a baby, so it’s not like I got to know her personally.”

So her name was Kuchiki, Ichigo deducted smartly. Not that it mattered, really. Ichigo knew that the second they would step beyond the gates of the graveyard, she would step into her nice car and return to her nice life, and he would go back to being hated by everyone. He didn’t really have much to come back to, now that he thought about it. Not even his home felt like _home_ anymore, and Ichigo was a ghost of what he used to be, the ghost of a person he didn’t even remember.

That, though, was a problem for future Ichigo to deal with. Present Ichigo was trying to think about what his mum would do in his situation: try to comfort the girl? Ichigo was too aware of the fact that he was awkward to subject either of them to that kind of torture; ignore her? Masaki would be probably rolling in her grave, being _disappointed_ in him, and if there was one thing Ichigo could bear less than disappointing the living, that was disappointing the dead. Instead, he settled for plucking a lily from the bouquet he brought for his mother, leaving it near her on the bench.

Kuchiki-san picked it up gently and brought it to her nose, inhaling deeply before she looked at him– _truly_ looked at him, in a way that made Ichigo unreasonably fear that she had seen him for what he is, right through the facade he was trying to upkeep. 

Her eyelashes were dark and wet, sticking together.

Ichigo shook his head and got up, leaving the flower in front of his mother’s headstone. He didn’t look back, or at least tried his best not to, but he couldn’t stop the look he threw over his shoulder at the girl, who seemed to notice and wave him _good bye._

No one would start loving him from a simple wave he gave without even turning back, right? It would not kill anyone.

And if it killed him on the inside, that was, once again, his business.

*

Ichigo couldn’t even say he hated rain; it was that unsettling, cold feeling that filled his bones that made him feel absolutely miserable.

He was caught in the rain while he was returning from school, and as much as he would have liked to just make his feet move and just get home faster, heading to the bookshop before getting soaked sounded like a far more appealing idea.

As much as he wanted Yuzu to hate him, Ichigo was not going to go out of his way to upset her, and ruining her favourite carpet twice sounded like something that would completely break the fragile peace that held the Kurosaki household together.

Ichigo raised his head in greeting to the clerk behind the desk, his steps following a beeline to the classic lit shelves, before redirecting himself to the manga section. He had already read enough tragedies for him to look like a complete nihilist, and while at first he had sought a cure for his _issue_ , not even fantasy literature covered weird people who could see ghosts, cursed so that everyone who loved them would die in turn.

Whoever said that one should rever being _one of a kind_ had no idea what they were talking about. Being one of a kind meant being misunderstood, and approximated, and idealised, and studied, and just utterly, completely alone.

But Ichigo didn’t really mind being alone though? He had time for himself, and he could read. He loved reading, he hated people, and wanted people to hate him back. Pieces of a puzzle falling into place.

One piece that didn’t seem to fall into place was crouching in front of the horror manga section, absent-mindedly twirling dark locks of hair on pale fingers, purple eyes scanning the titles. 

“Are you following me or something?” Ichigo asked, trying – and spectacularly failing – to conceal the mirth in his voice. Kuchiki-san was not only startled, but she seemed to lose her footing for a bit, before regaining her balance with expert movements, rising to her full height, holding a copy of _Uzumaki_. She turned to glare at him, before noticing that he was not trying to be rude – though being rude seemed to come naturally to Ichigo, so he couldn’t be too sure of that.

“Are you always feeling this self-important, or is my presence some kind of catalyst for that?” she raised a perfectly arched eyebrow at him, a challenge Ichigo had no reason to, and would not accept–

“Well, Midget, you know what they say about strong essences held in small bottles–”

Ichigo definitely felt the strong kick to his shin from her small figure. She straightened her back, brushing off invisible particles of dust from her navy coat, looking just as pristine as she had before almost totaling Ichigo’s leg. She looked, definitely different from the last time he had seen her, but Ichigo supposed he had witnessed something he was not supposed to, a moment that was wrapped around reality, never to be mentioned again. 

Without the puffy cheeks and wind ruffling her hair, Kuchiki-san seemed, cold; not in the disturbed, silent way, but in the elite, aloof demeanour one naturally adopted after inhabiting a league of their own. 

Ichigo thought for a moment that maybe she had a curse of her own to bear. A curse that would explain the tiredness in her eyes and the tightness around the corners of her mouth, the tenseness of her muscles; after all, a curse shared is a curse half broken. He tried to convince himself that he didn't care about any of those. 

But then again, curses did not exist outside of Ichigo's monochrome world, filled with people and monsters alike. He chuckled humorlessly, which attracted a strange look from Kuchiki-san. There was still something a bit out of place about her, but Ichigo shrugged it off; it is not like he was not considered a weirdo himself, who was he to judge anyway.

Her phone vibrated in her hand – she was wearing _gloves_ , Ichigo noticed with stupefaction; extremely high quality gloves, that seemed to belong to an entirely different century – and immediately after, Kuchiki-san stared at him blankly for a few moments before eventually asking “Is anyone going to pick you up, by any chance?”

Judging by his already damp clothes and wet hair, Ichigo felt a bit stupid while denying. She nodded once, thoughtfully, before she started rummaging through her bag, and pulled out what seemed a small but sturdy black umbrella. Her phone vibrated once more before it started ringing, the catchy (and probably considered old by that point) tune muffled by the rain and the ambiental sounds cushioning the shop. Kuchiki-san looked around a bit panicked, pushing the umbrella and the book she was holding in his hands, bidding him _goodbye_ with such speed that it took Ichigo a few moments to notice the white scarf that had eventually unwrapped itself from her neck and fell to the floor.

He didn’t get to ask her how is he going to return the umbrella.

He didn’t get to ask her about the book either, but she seemed to like it, so Ichigo bought it anyway. He could do with something new, anyway, and it wasn’t like he was going to carry it with him in his backpack every day, hoping to give it to her when they met again.

Instead, he got to pick up the silky scarf, that in the artificial lights seemed translucent. A subtle, familiar fragrance filled his nostrils as Ichigo brought it closer to his face– and that was when he finally noticed the small, elegant embroidery with silver thread that read simply, 

_Kuchiki Rukia_.

**Author's Note:**

> I am far from happy with this piece, so once I post the second part, I will probably edit it, but, as Ichigo very eloquently put it, that's a problem for future me to deal with.
> 
> If you got this far, thank you for reading! If there are any questions about the lore/concepts, leave a comment and I will reply as soon as possible. :)


End file.
